Your Right to Know

State officials say the average cost of health insurance will soar 41 percent for thousands of Ohioans who buy coverage through a new online marketplace. Experts, however, cautioned that such projections are misleading.

“For consumers, all you can do is walk away from this confused. Averages are pretty much meaningless,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“These are sticker prices, and very few people will pay these prices,” Levitt said. “Many will qualify for subsidies.”

Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who heads the Ohio Department of Insurance, ignited another round of debate over the federal health-care law yesterday with the release of average rates for marketplace plans that soon will be available to individuals and small businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees.

Enrollment begins Oct. 1 for more than 200 individual plans from 12 insurance companies approved by the insurance department. The average premium in 2014 will cost $332.58 a month. This year, the average cost of individual plans in Ohio is estimated to be $236.29 a month.

Marketplace costs do not account for federal subsidies, which will be available to Ohioans with incomes below 400 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s $45,960 a year for an individual or $94,200 for a family of four.

The insurance department also approved 184 small-group plans offered by six companies for sale on the exchange. They will cost an average of $401.99 a month in 2014, compared with $341.03 this year, an 18 percent jump.

Taylor said the federal health-care law is to blame, specifically minimum-benefit requirements for coverage offered through online marketplaces being established in all 50 states.

“Ohio has traditionally had a more competitive health-insurance market than other states with a wider range of prices and choices — from simple, high-deductible coverage to comprehensive, full-service plans,” said Taylor, a critic of Obamacare.

“That level of diversity is essentially outlawed under Obamacare so Ohio’s rates and premiums are going up significantly, and going up more than in other states where prices were already high.”

Republican leaders said the anticipated increase in premiums underscores the need to repeal the health-care law.

“The announcement (yesterday) in Ohio by Lt. Gov. Taylor is irrefutable evidence that the president’s health-care law is not ‘working fine.’ To the contrary, it is hurting our economy, driving up the cost of health care and making it harder for small businesses to hire workers,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said “Obamacare is making things more difficult for families struggling to make ends meet; it’s making it harder for them to keep their heads above water.”

But supporters of the health-care law say Taylor isn’t giving a complete picture of the law.

“They are scaring people when they ought to be trying to educate them,” said Col Owens, senior attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio and co-chairman of Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage.

“They ought to be saying that premiums are going to go up but more people are going to be covered and coverage will be better because it must meet essential health-benefits criteria, and it’s going to be more affordable because people who need help paying for it will get help. When you put all that together, it’s a very different message.”

Brian Rothenberg, executive director of ProgressOhio, said subsidies will make coverage more affordable and that Taylor, by not including them in her calculations, “is at best misleading Ohioans and at worst guilty of pandering to the worst nature of politicians.”